When she, like Jacob’s wife, makes fierce reply,
Yet fond - Oh! give me children, or I die:
And I return - still childless doom’d to live,
Like the vex’d patriarch - Are they mine to give?
Ah! much I envy thee thy boys, who ride
On poplar branch, and canter at thy side;
And girls, whose cheeks thy chin’s fierce fondness know,
And with fresh beauty at the contact glow.”
“Oh! simple friend,” said Ditchem, “wouldst thou gain
A father’s pleasure by a husband’s pain?